value creation

This week’s New Media Age contains a feature on location-based marketing looking at some case studies of where it has been used well and the opportunities for it as part of the marketing mix. We’ve written before about opportunities that location-based services offer to marketing. From using Foursquare as a small business to the many ways to use Facebook Places, location-based services offer many potentials for experimentation and new ways of communicating with and marketing too consumers.

Technology-based companies typically make one common mistake: They get too caught up in technological innovation, particularly developing new technologies, or get too obsessed with the next killer technology and think the world revolves around their latest invention. Even if they find the right applications for their technologies, they often defer the serious effort needed to figure out how they create economic value – or how do they make money?

This is an argument that will not go away anytime soon. I have had heated debate in our b-school days way back. The question goes back to the core of the modern corporation. What role does business plays in creating value in societies? Or the question should be more about the ‘how’? Among B-schools there are many different point of views on what is a modern corporation.

Guest Post by Maria Pergolino

Marketers are working hard to create great content that can be used to create sales leads, drive website traffic, promote brand, and educate customers and prospects. Unfortunately, not all content is created equal. To ensure you get the most out of your content marketing efforts, you must follow these six rules:

I’ve a stack of books sitting on my coffee table waiting for me to write a review. I am reading less and less lately, from a historically high of 4 books a month to now 15 books a year. But I am buying more art books. And I review 2 dozen of books a year. My magazine subscriptions have been cut down from 40+ magazines to less than 10. Many including Wired and Forbes have dropped off from my list and I stopped many of the journals, many are just repeating old things. It is like digging out bones from one graveyard and put them in another one. I’ve picked three books to review and share with you this week:

I few years back, I made a new year's resolution to lose some weight, something that's way overdue. After years of eating whole cakes or bags of cookies and washing it down with a half gallon of milk, the calories caught up with me. I thought I could keep avoiding them for a couple of more years, but I couldn't hide any longer. So, I went to Dr. Rodriguez, a nutritionist that my wife & mother-in-law have used in the past with great results.

Michael Porter popularized the idea and proposed generic strategies for organizations like Cost Leadership and Differentiation. Normally I’m not a fan of generic strategies as I don’t think they really lead to a sustainable advantage. IMHO most strategies should take such good use of your organizations talents, capabilities and resources that it should be virtually impossible to copy your strategy. In other words if you are worried about sharing your strategy with people because you think people might steel it, I’d suggest you find a new strategy.

It's ten days to Christmas and we're already two days into Hanukkah, so I'm ready to call the season's retail sales:

• The worst performing stores and brands will often evidence the "best" advertising, only the results won't be their fault.
• The best sales results will come from businesses that offered low prices, and they won't get credit for any marketing success.

Let me make a prediction, 10 of the top 100 most popular brands in 5 years time will be Social Enterprise Brands. What are they? They are a new form of organizations. We see more and more development of a mixed economy of companies coming together to further progress on social, economic & environmental well being. Expect to plenty of innovation where Social Technologies meet Social Enterprises.

Late last week, Warner Music Group fired nearly 40 people at Rhino Records, signaling it has all but given up on producing CDs. The flacks blathered and the stock analysts swooned, yet nobody mentioned that the company pretty much ceased to exist.